The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

Underground Dark Elf city

Salutations everyone, I am super new to CCIII and I would like some advice from you old pro's here. I have hand drawn a city underground for an upcoming D&D Dark Elf game I am running. The hand drawn piece on graph paper is fairly detailed and I would like to add some color and put some of the nice touches that I have seen CCIII do to some of the cities and land art.

Basically I want to recreate the city using the tools on the base CCIII. I do not have the city creator software just yet as I want to learn on this part first. I would think sort of a stone background with some bluffs (underground rises) where some of the nobles live and some schools for the Dark Elves are should be easily made using the inherent tools withing CCIII. It is a rather large city with multiple districts and 4 large rivers that intersect the city and split it into 4 large sections and rivers spill into a great Niagara Falls-esque explosion of water in a very very deep chasm which in turn feeds large tributaries that end in a large underground sea. There are, as I have stated earlier, large rises, giant stalactites, stalagmites, small fissures in the earth, large mushroom and underground trees varieties. There is even a large grass-like plateau for herds of bison like animals.

This and many homes of various sizes and a traders market and much more are scattered throughout the large dark elf city. I would like to add some nice icons for certain areas and all around just make it a professional level looking map for my players.

So there it is, is somewhat of a small nutshell. Any advice to help me get started on this would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure you are familiar with Nodes. Ala most drawing programs now days.
familiarize yourself with the layer dialog. This way you can separate all items individually and find stuff faster if you have to re-edit.
You then can have a map where you have hidden details on DM layers.

Neonknight is the Guru, and he just explained to me making custom symbols from PNG sources, which bring amazing detail into CCIII maps.

Just have fun with it, and take a break and absorb stuff then go back at it. Everyone says it has a steep learning curve, I've been playing with CCII and III for nearly ten years and nowhere near an expert.

Hello Danjr, well thank you for the vote of confidence on CCII being powerful.
What are Nodes, and by layers do you mean the sheets icon from the overland map video series on Youtube? Custom symbols, are these something I need to make also and PNG is a pic designation as, say, giff and jpeg?
And if Neonknight reads this send me a whisper here or an message here or something I am sure I can pick your brain for all sorts of goodies.

Nodes are the points on each "entity" you create. The node tools will allow you to manipulate the entities you create to exactly what you want. I haven't watched any of the You tube videos, so no idea.

Custom symbols will allow you to make maps more akin to Dundjinni than the old CCII type maps.

Layers are the tool where you can divide up "entities" that you make. Water, streets, text, vegetation etc etc. My map has about 40 layers on it. Sewers, dwarven stronghold levels, buildings, burnt buildings, wells, sewers, street names yadda yadda yadda. If you start off with good organization to start, it will save a ton of headaches.

In CC3, Sheets function like how you would expect layers to act in other programs - Sheets are drawn on top of each other (which is why an entity on one Sheet can cover or obscure the view of an entity on a lower Sheet) in a "stack" and establish the drawing order. CC3's Sheet Effects (shadows, glows, blurs, transparencies etc.) are applied to Sheets as well.

Think of Layers in CC3 as categories instead. You can group like entities on a Layer, even if they reside on different Sheets.

Also, watch Joe Sweeney's CC3 video tutorials. They are the best way to learn how to use the software, and he does a great job teaching CC3 basic concepts. They aren't really that long, and the time spent watching them is time well spent.